Bulk material handling systems are used in a wide variety of contexts including, but not limited to, drilling and completion of oil and gas wells, concrete mixing applications, agriculture, and others. In existing bulk material handling applications, dry material (e.g., sand, proppant, gel particulate, dry-gel particulate, aggregate, feed, and other solid materials) may be transported in a number of ways. In the formation of wellbore treatment fluids, for example, bulk material is often transferred between transportation units, storage tanks, blenders, and other on-site components via pneumatic transfer, sand screws, chutes, conveyor belts, and other components.
Recent developments in bulk material handling operations involve the use of portable containers for transporting dry material about a well location. The containers can be brought in on trucks, unloaded, stored on location, and manipulated about the well site when the material is needed. The containers are generally easier to manipulate on location than a large supply tank trailer. The containers are eventually emptied by dumping the contents thereof to a desired destination.
In traditional container-based bulk material transfer, portable containers generally include a discharge gate at the bottom of the container that can be actuated to empty bulk material from the container at a desired time and location. In applications where several portable containers are used throughout an operation, it is desirable to utilize containers with discharge gates that are both easy to actuate and low cost to manufacture.